WASHINGTON (RNS) — Appearing at two events on Thursday (Feb. 6), both of them part of the festivities surrounding the National Prayer Breakfast, President Donald Trump spoke about the centrality of religious belief to the United States and announced that he would create a new presidential commission on religious liberty.
“From the earliest days of our republic, faith in God has always been the ultimate source of the strength that beats in the hearts of our nation,” Trump said in his first appearance in front of a gathering of lawmakers in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall. “We have to bring religion back. We have to bring it back much stronger.”
Later, at a separate NPB Gathering at the Washington Hilton hotel, Trump announced he would appoint Florida Pastor Paula White to lead his White House faith office, as she did at the end of the first Trump administration.
At the Capitol, talking to members of Congress from both parties, Trump expressed hope that lawmakers will find common ground, specifically mentioning transgender rights, which he inveighed against during his presidential campaign. He related a conversation with a transgender rights supporter who opposed the president’s recent executive order banning transgender women from women’s sports. While he didn’t agree with the pe …